I darted between billowing towers of smoke and embers, careful to keep my footing on the thin terrain. That the same terrain also happened to be a conveyor belt all too eager to carry me off to a fiery death made the task all that much harder. "It's never just a nice, fair fight in a big, wide arena," I said, wiping the sweat on my brow with the back of my gloved hand. "It's always gotta be a dilapidated ruin, or a blizzard, or a trash pit, or a friggin' conve–"

A spurt of molten hot liquid centimeters from my face swatted away my complaints. It went spiraling off the cliff side to join the sea of similar stuff below. "...yor belt. You know, we're not exactly on even terms here if I'm the only one who has to worry about taking a dive in the drink."

The pair of monsters appeared oblivious to my taunting; neither was all that invested in our battle to begin with. Closer of the two stood a little round stump of a creature shaped like a miniature volcano, the kind you'd catch about fifty of at any given science fair. Two stubby pairs of legs managed against all laws of physics to balance its rock-hard body, while a bubbling red liquid oozed and occasionally bursted from the crevice atop its head. It had an irritating carefree look about it, with its loose smile and thin curved eyes that looked everywhere but my direction while the creature waddled back and forth. Hovering farther away was easily the more bizarre of the duo, a sentient airplane no larger than myself wearing a bright red bow on its top and a bright red blush across its cockpit. Something about the way it floated with its wings drawn inward and twitched nervously anytime I dared to glanced in its direction made this uncomfortable knot twist in my gut, like I was getting caught slipping love letters in an elementary school classroom. Wouldn't that be a nice change of pace.

I backed up far as I could manage to keep both of my unorthodox assaulters in sight, taking small side-steps against the force of the rushing floor at my feet. Between the two of them, I was at a clear disadvantage: the lovesick airplane held no fear of crashing off the cliffside, while the little volcano seemed to be made from the same stuff that threatened to break my neck on the way down and melt my skin off once I'd hit the bottom. "I'll help! Healing magma!" the chubby rock monster cried as another attempt was made to douse me in his hot, sticky goo. I moved left, watching the lava splatter against the ground and promptly sear a hole as it landed ('healing magma' my ass), leaving myself open to a diving attack from the fidgeting airplane. With a whir from its engines it soared over in the blink of an eye, catching me straight across the face with the tip of its wing. I reeled backwards, jaw hissing, barely catching myself before it spun around and swooped towards me again. The creature found nothing but air as I threw myself forwards, landing with a face-full of something hard and my arms wrapped tight around whatever my nose blood had started seeping down.

"Uhhgh..." I mumbled intelligently, prying my crushed jawline and bruised forehead off the surface at a reluctant pace. While the rest of my face was preoccupied screaming in pain, my eyes opened to find those of the little volcano monster mere inches from my own. Only, they were a bit different this time; they were glowing embers, his mouth curled in an ecstatic grin that should've been reserved for a life-long friend, and not some sweaty stranger with a flattened face. I yanked my arms back as I felt heat sweltering up from beneath his outer shell.

"Hehe...hug...continue!"

"W-what?" I stuttered, body still uncomfortably warm from the accidental embrace. Somehow my shock took a front seat over my injuries. "Back it up lava-breath, you've got it all wr–"

"–If you're hugging, then I must be helping!" the stumpy monster declared, wiggling his round body like a toddler struggling not to piss himself. "My best was finally enough for someone! I should go help someone else!" He let out a puff of smoke and bounded away before I could begin to wrap my head around what he said, let alone gather my bearings.

"...I mean, I'll take it." By then the conveyor belt had dumped me onto some more stable terrain, the familiar red earth that promised not to come out from under me at the earliest convenience. I climbed to my feet and popped a bit of monster food in my mouth. Once my jaw stopped flaring with every bite and my nose wasn't crooked as a politician with a spine injury, the low rumble of a plane engine reminded me there had been two, not one, genetic abominations firing flaming projectiles at my person moments earlier. "Ah, damn it. To think I nearly forgot about the magic bow-wearing airplane trying to skewer me on its nose." I kept a watchful gaze on the monster as it circled, its movements slow and deliberate. "C'mon, sucker airlines. Why don't you hover a little closer and give me something to swing at?"

My attacker visibly blanched. "A-as if I'd even want to get closer to you!" it cried in a shrill voice that could convince glass to break itself. In spite of its protests, the plane began to rear back and prepare for a charge. I crouched down and raised my weapons, a bullet with a different coat of paint slicing the air between us, its engines roaring with the effort, drawing closer, closer...

Beep! Beep! Beep!

"Oh, for god's—the hell is it this time?" I moved lazily out of the dive-bombing hunk of aluminum as it soared passed me, presumably burying itself ten feet deep in the floor if the following crash was any indication. Nothing else seemed to matter half so much as I rummaged through my over-packed pockets for the loudest, most irritating piece of mechanical "ingenuity" I'd ever had the pleasure of stuffing down my pants. "I swear, Alphys, if it's anything less than life threatening..." Finally I got my claws on the modified cellphone, knocking several random items out onto the ground in my hurry to pull the damn thing out. Every time I so much as took a breath another insecure and haphazard message was appearing on the screen—courtesy of the reserved reptilian scientist herself—accompanied by that awful beeping. "Gah, shut up already," I said, fumbling with the buttons while the phone laughed in my face. Trying to figure out the device made me feel about seven thousand years older than I was.

Predictably enough, once I figured for the umpteenth time how to access messages my eyes were bruised by a violent storm of vaguely intelligible hysterics. For reasons beyond a poor fallen human's comprehension, Alphys held the need to post every fragmented thought that popped into her head on some kind of blog that, even more bizarrely, I had total access to despite having: no reason to care; no idea how I started receiving the messages; and no idea why the good doctor would want me reading anything she was posting to begin with. Scowling, I began to feel my way through them for anything worth reading and came up empty handed. They followed one after another like a tedious one-sided argument:

Alphys: just realized I didn't watch the human fight Undyne v.v

Alphys: well i know she's unbeatable i'll ask her about it later .

Alphys: for now i gotta call the human and guide them =.

Alphys: gonna call them in a minute! =.=

Alphys: I HATE USING THE PHONE I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS LMAO .

Alphys: omg i've had my claw over the last digit for 5 minutes. Omg i'm just gonna do it i'm just gonna call!

"How fast do those pudgy little fingers have to work to type all this out?" I wondered aloud, my mind doing cartwheels trying to figure whether "v.v" was part of some ancient monster language lost to time. The most recent disturbance had been a phone call, though the doctor had hung up too quickly for me to contemplate answering. "And who's million dollar idea was it to hide the call option? Ugh, I miss my old phone..."

I was so preoccupied with my hunt for a sensible user interface I hardly noticed the returning whir of a somewhat more crumpled looking airplane. Its engines choked as it hovered a few meters away, barely capable of keeping itself off the ground. "Id...idiot!" it spat, bow now dangling on its underside like a chicken's red flap of skin. "I'm not done attacking yet! The least you could do is pay me some attention! N-not that I'd want that or any—"

"—Sign up for a free trial? A free trial of what, basic functionality?"

That caused my attacker to sputter furiously. "F-fine! I see how it is! First you go and hug that gassy little pipsqueak, and now you're just gonna ignore me on your phone like I'm not even here!?" It spun around so its back was to me. "Well guess what? Now you can have your wish! I don't even care about you! I...I-I'll go find some other stupid human to sta–to fight! Whatever!" With its final outburst behind it, the disfigured and royally pissed off hunk of aluminum and sass fluttered away, leaving me in silence apart from the distance hum of machinery and the crackling of magma far below.

"...Did I just take a picture? Again?" I sighed. "At least I've got one hell of a photogenic chin..."

My impromptu jawbone admiration was rudely interrupted by another call from the doctor. This time I was able to answer it before she could chicken out. "Finally! I've been trying to call you for the past ten minutes, lizard fingers."

"O-Oh!" Her voice came through clearer than I expected (the only improvement I'd concede her) in spite of her stammer. "Yeah, so the blue lasers..."

My brow furrowed. "Lasers? Baby steps, Doc, I'm still trying to make a call with this thing thanks to your 'upgrades'. Not to mention the delightful little monster pair that tried to flambé me all of fifteen seconds ago."

Silence scratched at my ears. I worried the lizard's heart had stopped from anxiety until some muffled whispering passed through the receiver. "I-I'm sorry," she cried suddenly, "I totally forgot to introduce m-m-myself first! I-it's Alphys here, hi!"

"Mm-hmm, and this is the guy you accidentally sent a killer robot after, now are we through with the introductions? You ruined my phone. Thanks."

"R-ruined?" She sounded hurt by my comment. "All I did was modernize a few f-features. You can't find...the call app?"

"Nope. You sound like I asked for help tying my shoes, is it supposed to be obvious?"

"...I-it's the icon that looks like a phone..."

I hurriedly swiped back to the screen I started on. "...Huh. So it is. Well, what about the constant blog posts? And how am I supposed to interpret these...hieroglyphics, you keep sending me?"

There was another pause. A long, heavy, disbelieving pause. "Th-they're called emoticons, they're supposed to r-resemble different facial expressions...s-so you don't have to type out everything you're feeling..."

"Really?" I squinted at the screen like some eternal geezer. "...Oh my God."

"I know, r-right!?" The lizard cleared her throat. "Ahem...So, a-as I was saying, Hotland's security system h-has...it makes use of lasers—"

"—So I've heard."

"Y-yeah, the blue ones won't hurt you if you don't move! Oranges—er, orange ones, um...y-you have to be moving a-and they won't...move through those ones!"

My ears were ringing so hard I was sure I'd gone deaf. "That all?"

"Um...yep!" She stopped talking, and I feared at least one of our brains had short-circuited. Then came a hurried, "Bye!" and a click that told me I wouldn't be getting any better advice for the time being.

I hadn't thought about taking a single step before the thing went off twice again:

Alphys: OMG I DID IT! claws haven't shook like that since Undyne called me to ask about the weather…..

Alphys: WAIT THERE'S NO WEATHER DOWN HERE WHY DID SHE CALL ME?

Up ahead the cliffside disappeared into a harsh metal walkway that clanged with every step I took. I glanced up and found Hotland's sprawling caverns were now coated in a tangle of wires and pipes; flickering orange light from the exposed magma below painted them in a warm orange glow. Rugged veins of rock clashed against glossy metal plating, pistons pumping tirelessly in a tedious rhythm, exhausts spitting bright blue flames and a dull red pulse humming from beneath its clear outer shell. Whatever any of it meant or was supposed to do was well beyond my pay grade, but I would've been an exceptional liar to call the display unimpressive. Compared to the stripped back and primitive sections of the Underground I had endured before now, this felt like stumbling out of a straw hovel and onto a star cruiser.

I was so distracted by the shiny tech, my brain barely had enough time to acknowledge the even shinier laser pointed inches from my face.

"GAH—"

Backpedaling, I tested how comfy a landing pad the floor would make (not a glowing review, in all honesty), dazed and staring at the orange beam meters from my body. It hung over the pathway like a curtain with several more shifting behind it. "Looks like a good time," I remarked, scraping myself off the ground. "Move through the orange ones, stay still for the blues ones...alright, lets do it."

I gave myself a bit of space for a running start and took off, sneakers clanging against the metal plating. The first pair of lasers were both orange; they were pretty imposing up until the last moment where they bent around my speeding figure. Next one was a blinding blue that moved back and forth along the path. I slid to a halt, waited for it to wash over me harmlessly, then lurched forward again without waiting to check if it had turned around behind me. "No sweat," I murmured as another orange gate pretended to block the way. Past that was nothing but open air and—

"—Shit!" My soles screeched so loud I swore I could smell rubber burning. A pair of blues grazed over my frozen form one after the other, then repeated the process in the other direction. From my position I could tell they were designed to cross over one another when the first reached the end of their trail, leaving just enough space to slip between them if I was careful. I waited two rotations. Three. When the first laser returned I waited for it to pass over, stepped forward, waited for the second, and rushed ahead the instant I was through. The final orange beam ushered me ahead without complaint.

"Finally!" I huffed, slowing my pace as not to barrel off the side of a cliff. "God, and they say airport security is exhausting. That felt like running a marathon and some change." I wiped a bead of sweat from my forehead, the landscape of earth and metal taunting me, fading into the distance. I didn't miss a beat bouncing towards it. "Bout' time I got a real work out from this place. You know, with how peaceful it's been and all."

As if insulted by my compliment, the Underground tossed another obstacle in my way just to get under skin. Up ahead the path just ended, dropped off the face of the earth, and across the gap left behind a set of gargantuan doors were sealed tightly. A puff of steam obscured my vision, but I could just make out a set of red switches on either side of—

Beep! Beep! Beep!

My thought was yet again snatched by the phone's cries for attention. Growling, I brought it to my ear. "Alphys here!" said the disembodied voice.

"Who else?"

The young dinosaur hesitated. "U-uh...I-I dunno, a-am I really the only one who calls you?" So quietly it could've been an insect, I heard a "OhgodwhywouldIsaythat?"

"Relax Alph, it's true. I'm just as lonely as you think I am." I brought my hand to my chest pressed it, forcing out as much angst and hot air as was buried there. "That is the burden...of being...a human, lost...rejected by the society that made him...labelled him...as the true monster."

"..."

"What's the problem, too much cheese or not enough cheese? I'm open to criticism."

In a tiny voice came a, "...D-did the radiation from the lasers fry his brain?"

I sighed. "It's a joke, Alph. Guess my theater skills aren't as sharp as they could be."

"O-oh," bleated the lizard, who then broke out into the most authentically fake laughter I'd ever heard. "Ahahahahahaha...ahem. How d-did you fare against the l-l-laser defenses? N-no...brain frying? You're sure?"

"No brain frying," I assured her. "Though I did wonder...why not just have one blue laser that covers the whole path? Wouldn't that keep everyone from getting through, problem solved?"

Alphys giggled. "Don't y-you think that's a little silly? I-if we did that, how would a-any monsters be able to s-solve the puzzle?"

"You're right, that does seem counterintuitive." I sucked down a groan. "Anyway, the path is blocked—

"—R-right! Uh, to your left...er, s-solve the puzzles to y-your right and l-left, and the northern door will o-o-o-open!" She paused a moment before stuttering, "I-I think you sh-should g-g-go to the right first..."

There was a click, and I knew the good doctor had bailed on the phone call. "Perfect. Suddenly 'any advice' doesn't seem much better than 'no advice' after all."

From my island I could see the chrome-plated puzzle shacks, stumped by the planet sized spaces on either side of me. Alphys in her wellspring of wisdom, its depth rivaling that of even the most expansive kiddie pools, had neglected to mention how anyone without wings or an intrinsic resistance to fire got around in Hotland. I poked around for a bit, the endless buzzing and chiming of my phone coercing me to test my jumping distance with the impassable fiery abyss all the while, until my life was saved by the discovery of a vent marked with a glowing arrow in the dead center of the island. A bit of steam would shoot out of it every few seconds, hissing in the crevice beneath it like a den of snakes. After the steam dissipated the arrow would rotate so it pointed to the any of the other platforms. "Alright, I think I get it," I said to myself, sweating from more than just the heat. "Unless I'm totally wrong and this thing is just...directing some air vents, or, something." My tongue licked a dry pair of lips as I looked at the pit, then to the vent, back to the pit, until I went all lightheaded from the spinning. "Who am I kidding, it's the Underground. That makes too much sense to be true. Surely, this incredibly dangerous method of transportation that wasn't designed with humanity in mind won't kill me. Surely." With my stomach caving in on itself, I waited for the arrow to point right and stepped on.

Nothing happened at first. The hissing steam quieted. I figured the vent wasn't for transportation after all; I allowed my body to relax.

Then I remembered that technology hated me, and a truckload of air sucker-punched me upward while I flailed my limbs like a tree in a hurricane. A blur of blinding reds spun around me while I gurgled some brand new curses no one had ever heard before. Instinctively my hands shot out to grasp nothing but hot air and the promise of certain death, until I realized my current trajectory wasn't landing me in the warm embrace of magma, and I needed a landing strategy. Fast.

The ground came up hard. I tumbled over myself until I got a handful of some loose dirt and brought my body to a halt. Springing up at the first chance I got, I cheered, "Woo! Yeah! Not dead! Might vomit! Let's never do that again! Ah—hurrgh..."

Once I'd left my comfy landing bed a treasured token of favor from the deepest recesses of my stomach, I carried my triumph to the chamber housing the security puzzle. A couple monsters sat just outside dangling their legs over the flaming chasm, though the pair had the decency not to jump me on sight. How civilized.

Inside I spent the greater part of five minutes fiddling with a joystick while some snazzily dressed cat bent my ear, going on and on about how the door to the area was closed ("I know"), how lazy his two co-workers were ("I don't care"), and how he kept running out of ammo on the puzzle ("I'll have you impounded if you open that sniveling little mouth of yours again"). The puzzle was set up like an old arcade shooter; you had two shots to hit a target, but these blocks would get in the way, and you could only afford to blast one of them. It took longer than I'd care to admit for me to register that the stick slid the blocks up and down, and that one could be filed away for a clear two shots at the target. The solution even offered a little fanfare in the form of text reading "Congratulations!"

"Wow, you solved it?" Came the fuzzy freak's voice. "I'm impressed, you must be a total nerd?"

I said nothing as I stared back at his sunglasses, mouthing silently "pound" before leaving.

To my surprise, the two monsters outside stopped me before I even had the chance to ignore them. "Hey, you! Did you see the new episode of Mettaton's show?" the first called out to me, a green lizard looking guy dressed in the same kind of suit as the cat. "I just caught it on my phone! Those special effects on that human were amazing, they just looked so real..."

Even I impressed myself with how calmly I bit back a stammer. "Eh, they were pretty good I guess. I think those effects on its skin when it was burnt to a crisp were a little off, though."

"...Well of course! An experienced viewer like myself can tell where it's CGI, obviously..."

"Course you can," the second monster spoke up in a cool tone, this one a shadowy wisp whose head ended in smoky poof. "Either way, the effects can't be hurtin' his ratings. He's become the most popular star in the Underground!"

"Is that so?" I asked, edging away as quickly as I could while going unnoticed.

"Is that s—can you believe this guy Herbie?" The wisp laid on his friend's shoulder and turned his white shades on me. "How could you not know that? Mettaton's been everywhere recently. His fan club probably has two...no, at least three dozen members!"

How is it that I'm the only one from the surface, and yet to these people I'm still living under a rock? "Wow, that's gotta be at least ten whole monsters! Crazy how that works. Anyway, I'm off to make it a solid four dozen in the club, keep up the hard work gentlemen!" I gave the pair a mock salute and strolled away, praying it was only the heat that had me drenched in sweat.

The path to puzzle number two saw me making a couple more vent hops, but without the added element of surprise it was much easier to stick the landing. I even threw in a twirl on the second jump just to prove how little the extra air-time could phase me. 'Course, the added momentum and confusion almost caused me to stumble into a blue security laser guarding the next puzzle, but that wasn't about to damper my grand entrance mood.

"Alphys! Here!" The doctor answered my call with the same gusto as usual. "That blue laser seems totally impassable! B-b-but! As the royal scientist, I-I have a few tricks up my sleeve! I'll h-hack into the Hotland laser database and take it out!"

"You can just deactivate the lasers?" I asked, annoyance seeping into my tone. "Why didn't you do that sooner, or better yet, just hack into the door that these puzzles are protecting?"

An answer didn't come right away. "...U-um...w-w-w-well, certain terminals...a-areeasiert-togetinto, and...I-I...somefacetsof s-s-security are..." Click!

"Alphys? You—She hung up." I repressed a sigh as the laser went down and I headed in for another brain teaser.

Same puzzle, different pieces. Although it was identical in mechanics, this version's block layout made it that much harder to clear a path to the target. Without the faux feline haggling me throughout the process, it only took me half the time before the puzzle was congratulating me once again. The distant sound of metal scraping against metal told me the door had opened.

Now a master of vent-hopping, I had little trouble navigating my way back to the door and the sequence of identical vents that lay beyond that. It dawned on me a little too late that these vents didn't rotate, making that a one-way path, not that I had much reason to turn back in the first place. A hop, a skip, and a particularly stylish jump later and I had landed just outside some bland looking building where the inside was too dark to make anything out. I couldn't help but wander in with nowhere else to go, using my phone screen as a makeshift flashlight.

"I guess I could give the hacker wizard a call, see if she has any idea where I am," I thought out loud, perturbed by how...good the acoustics were. What little of the floor I could make out was covered in some tacky carpeting as well. "Weird...maybe Alphys could at least get the lights on, I can't find a switch anywhere."

No sooner had the words left my out that my phone went off again, this time conveniently already in my palm. "Dr. Alphys, I presume?"

"H-hi!" Her voice was chipper, as if she hadn't just bailed on our last conversation. "Uh, it's kinda dark in there, isn't it?"

"God damn, is there anywhere I can go you don't already have an army of cameras trained on me?"

"T-technically no...uh, But! That just means I can see your surroundings and give us the upper-hand!"

"Yet to be seen."

"S-so I'll start by hacking into the light systems and brightening them up!"

On her word every light in the universe saluted in attention. An eternity of blinking later and I was able to make out my surroundings. At first the room appeared to be a normal kitchen: fridge, stove, oven, counters, and utensils all accounted for, but something about it felt...off. Bizarre, a little too perfect, like it was a demonstration in a hardware store with all the individual pieces up for sale. Coupled with the eyesore of a carpet, the lime green scaffolding tucked in the shadows, and the studio cameras...

"Wait..."

Alphys echoed my own thoughts. "Oh no."

Wordlessly, a certain delusional hunk of metal rose from beneath the kitchen counter, adjusting the loosely placed chef's hat on his square head as he did so. "Ohhhh Yes!"

Needless to say I was across the room in a heartbeat, only to find that I was shut in on either side. I didn't feel I was capable of busting through a sheet of metal, as tempted as I was to try. "Y-you're really that eager to embarrass yourself on television, huh Mr. Paperweight?" I challenged, but couldn't keep my voice from trembling just enough to sell myself short.

Mettaton did nothing but hold up a hand meant to say "you don't want to see what happens when you try and interrupt my T.V. intros" and left it at that. "Welcome, beauties, to the Underground's premier cooking show!" The words Cooking with a Killer Robot were projected at the front of the room in disgusting glittery text. "Pre-heat your ovens, cause we got a very special recipe for you today!"

Can I just tip the damn thing over on its side and be done with it? It was a pleasant thought, but I was confident any damage I could do to the bot wouldn't be substantial. At worst I'd be an ant nibbling at a fridge, but if I could pull myself together for the cameras I knew there was another way to take the showboat down a peg. "A cooking show hosted by a robot," I ventured. "What are we preparing, flash-drives? CDs? Cassette tapes?"

"Oh, a little over-eager are we? It is exciting, isn't it?! Allow me to set your suspicions at ease!" Mettaton brought his hands up as he pronounced his master plan. "We're going to be making...a cake! And my lovely assistant here will gather the ingredients!" He gestured to me with his slinky-arms as a stock studio applause sounded overhead. "Everyone give them a big hand!"

"Assistant, huh?" I said, mouth pulled back in a scowl. "I didn't realize you were hiring. Short on staff?"

Mettaton didn't take his proverbial eyes off the camera. "Well you know, desperate times..." Without missing a beat, he began listening off the ingredients I was apparently tasked with getting. "We need sugar, milk, and eggs. Go for it, sweetheart!"

I stood motionless for so long you would've thought me dead. Running around an imitation kitchen picking up his shopping list wasn't torturous as I expected from a killer robot-turned-chef, and that's exactly what had me sweating bullets. What was the catch? Firecrackers in the eggs? Poison in the milk? Mutant venom-spitting killer spiders in the sugar? Weighing my options, the difference between cooperating and not cooperating seemed pretty slim. Thankful to be unrestrained for a change, I moved to the back counter to do Mettaton's grocery shopping.

Within thirty seconds I had all the the ingredients stacked precariously in my arms, the evil genius side of my brain shockingly silent as I tried to cook up a plan. I thought of shoving the big metal hulk in the oven like some fairy tale and frying his circuits, but knew he was too massive to squeeze in. I considered spilling the milk and eggs on him and watching it seep into his processors, but figured Alphys must have built her killing machine watertight. By the time I could begin to come up with anything else I was already beside Mettaton, setting his precious ingredients on the counter with a mock-bow. "My compliments to the chef...wait that's wr—"

"—Perfect!" Mettaton cheered, clasping his hands together. "Great job, beautiful!"

I had to hand it to the host, he knew exactly how to get my blood boiling through every pore on my face. "Is that why you keep me around, for eye candy? Well, it is showbiz after all, I guess one of us has to be the pretty one..."

"Oh, hon, if you need me to tell you you're the pretty one, I will, no questions asked!" Mettaton threw in an extra-extravagant spin when he addressed the cameras. "But back to our recipe of the hour! We've got all the ingredients we need to bake this cake." The robot went to reach for some utensils before he suddenly stopped, then jolted back to attention as if he'd been slapped. "Oh, wait a magnificent moment! How could I forget! We're missing the most important ingredient!"

Like I said, Mettaton was an expert at finding ways to get my blood boiling. And nothing gets the blood boiling hotter than pulling a chainsaw out from under the kitchen table and revving it to life with the loudest sound in the world. "...A human soul!"

"WHAT THE SHIT?!" My feet took me away from the chainsaw wielding robot chef/T.V. personality faster than my brain could process the thought. The eggs and milk came with me in my rush to get away, splattering on the floor. I was halfway to the door and praying the mess would slow Mettaton down before the reminder I was trapped hit me like an eighteen-wheeler going sixty-five. Mettaton glided towards me with the spinning blade out first, milking the tension for all it was worth. Every passing moment the screeching metal grew louder, drowning out the pounding in my ears, and the vision of myself chopped up and slathered with cake frosting grew more and more vivid. "Back off, dammit!" I cried, voice cracking. "Ever actually have human-soul cake before? It tastes terrible, trust me! They go better in pies! AAAH!"

Beep! Beep! Beep!

At first, the notion that my cellphone ringer was so loud it could cut above the whirling blades of a chainsaw seemed ridiculous. That is, until it became apparent the robot had stopped his assault, holding the chainsaw in place. "AREN'T YOU GOING TO ANSWER THAT, DARLING?" Mettaton yelled over the weaponized ear-sore (either the phone or the saw, take your pick).

I looked to the robot, to the door, then my pocket, back to the robot, and finally grabbed the phone from my pocket and brought it to my ear. "SORRY, NO CALLERS RIGHT NOW, WE'RE ON THE AIR," I screamed.

The doctor's voice came through clear as day. "P-put me on speaker!"

Without hesitating I did as the doctor demanded, and Mettaton even quieted his whirling stick of death as though he was offended at the mere thought. "Hello...?" he asked, catty, holding the chainsaw to the side like a purse. "I'm kind of in the middle of something here, if it's not important we'll be taking calls sometime later this year."

"W-wait a second!" Alphys half barked, half squealed, like a puppy getting kicked. "Couldn't you make a...Couldn't you use a..."

"Sometime today, please," I chimed in, earning an approving head-nod from Mettaton despite the circumstances.

"Couldn't you make a substitution in the recipe?!"

"...Substitution?" the host mused, "You mean, use a different, non-human ingredient? Why?"

Dead silence. No voices, no chainsaws, no obnoxious cooking show music, nothing. I bit my lip and chanced a look in the robot's direction, watching the panels on his face light up and dim in a sporadic pattern as he contemplated. The iguana's voice came through slow and shaky out the phone's receiver. "Uhh...what if someone's..."

Oh no. Alphys couldn't lie her way out of a parent/teacher conference. Please don't say anything stupid...

"...Vegan?"

I wondered if either party had heard me suck down a breath and nearly choke as my lungs imploded. "Vegan," the robot repeated, testing the word on his non-existent tongue.

Alphys huffed a quick reply. "Uh well I mean—"

"—THAT'S A BRILLIANT IDEA, Alphys!" Mettaton's upbeat background music cut in with his outburst as if the whole interruption was planned from the start. To my relief, he tossed away his weapon, a move that almost definitely shattered something on set, trading it for the much more in-character microphone you would've guessed had never left his hand. "Actually, I happen to have a substitution right here! MTT-brand always-convenient human-soul-flavor-substitute! A can of which is just over on that counter!" He motioned to a tiny counter on the far side of the room, rolling back to give me some well-deserved breathing space. "Well, darling, why don't you go get it?"

"Wha—'go get it'? Shove off, bolt brain!" The idea was so ridiculous it snapped me back to my senses, grinding my teeth together so hard I swore I could hear them cracking. "Knowing you it's probably rigged with explosives or something!"

"Explosives? Oh of course not, silly, I always save surprises like that for our sister show: 'Cooking with a Conniving Killer Robot!" He leaned into his mic with a devious look, at least so far as he could manage with glowing panels for a face. "Would you prefer we return to the dish as planned?"

"No! I—no, I guess not." I brushed past him with all the care of a shopper on Black Friday. "I'll take my chances with the exploding human-soul-flavor-substitute, thanks." After all, I still had Alphys on the line, probably hacking away to get me out of hell's kitchen faster than Mettaton could say "that's all, folks!"

A little sooner than I cared to say the canned mystery food was sitting within an arm's length, stamped with the magnificent Mettaton's very own likeness. The counter it sat on even lowered for me to grab it without any hassle, which made me only more suspicious. "Please don't blow up," I whispered to myself, "please just be a normal can of synthesized human soul food, please..."

In some sense I lucked out: the can wasn't trapped or tampered with in any way that I could tell. In another sense, the counter rocketed into the air as it was raised up on a pillar of identical counters and I hated everything.

While I craned my neck just to see the top of the stack and failed, Mettaton rolled up behind me with layers of smug dripping from his demeanor. "Surprised?"

His question required me tapping into some emergency processing power just to register it. "...I just never realized how tall the ceiling was in here before."

"By the way," the robot giggled, "our show runs on a strict schedule. If you can't get the can in the next one minute...we'll just have to go back to the original plan!"

The counter had finally stopped rising by then, now a tower of finely polished wood I wanted to drive my foot through. Snapping out of my funk, I shot the robot a glare and hissed, "By all means, keep winking at the camera oil-breath. I'll be the one celebrating once I get up there. And then we're gonna cook the best damn vaguely human soul flavored cake your electronic taste buds have ever tasted!"

Something I had said must have gotten to the bot, seeing as his first reaction was to clasp his hands together and twirl in place. "OH, what tenacity! What astounding confidence! The camera loves an optimist, dear! Too bad I don't." He gave me an apathetic wave like he was brushing a speck of dust off his metal shell. "Better start climbing, beautiful!"

On that note of inspiration, Mettaton promptly switched his wheel for a rocket thruster and moved to the join the stray bit of canned goods now a mile above me. Without dwelling on his words too long I tucked the phone in a jacket pocket, found the first handhold I could on the unscalable string of counters and began to scale it.

Alphys spoke up again just as I was hoisting myself off the floor. "Oh no! There's not enough time to climb—what are you doing?"

I grunted a reply, bringing a leg up to my side and kicking around for a foothold. "Climbing."

"Y-y-you won't make it!" she said, her voice strained. "F-fortunately I have a plan, b-b-but it requires that you get back on the ground!"

"Yeah? Does it also 'require' my soul getting ripped out and devoured?"

"P-please trust me!" Her desperation cut my ears like a knife. "I got us this far, didn't I?"

Us. There was that word. Alphys really considered herself a part of the same operation, considered us cut from the same cloth, as if she had any stake in the matter of me getting out of the Underground in one piece. She doesn't, but here she is, trying to help out the enemy of her kind just because she can. Just because she wants to. I sighed, hopping down off of what little progress I had made and landing with a thud. "Alright, I'm all ears."

"Perfect! Uh, when I was upgrading your phone, I added a few new...features. You see that huge button that says 'jet-pack' on the second page?"

My heart was doing jumping-jacks, eyelids threatening to snap off from much I was stretching them. "You're kidding." Sure enough when I pulled the phone back out and scrolled right, a screen-wide button and the word "jet-pack" greeted me in a bright red letters. "Figures I'd miss this. Hope it works..."

At my touch the screen went dark, and before I could get anxious over the whole process failing the phone began to vibrate, trying to squirm out of my hand. It was shaking so hard it eventually managed to succeed, floating just above my head. I watched as the whole thing began to morph, parts flipping over each other, coming apart and sealing back up, a stupid grin across my face the entire time. As the final pieces clicked into place the device was nearly unrecognizable, and all the better for it. I reached up to grab it only to miss, the thing somehow knowing to attach itself to my back all on its own. A strap wrapped around either of my shoulders with another coiled snugly at my waist.

"There!" Alphys said, voice still coming through the phone-turned-jet-pack, more audible than I had heard her. "It's not much, but you should have just enough fuel to reach the top!" I glanced behind me as a pair of flames erupted from the twin engines like a pair of stars exploding. "Now, get up there!"

"I'm on it." I turned my eyes skyward, bending my knees as if to take off in a sprint. "...Wait, Alphys, how do I fly this—AH!"

My feet were off the ground in an instant. Oxygen molecules grabbed and tore at my skin as they parted for what was now a human missile. Feeling about a thousand pounds heavier, I struggled to keep an eye open, watching what was an infinite tower shrink as I approached its summit, where the life-saving prize waited. I remembered thinking that it didn't seem so unscalable as it had before, even as my brain was rendered incapable of processing anything other than adrenaline.

"Heads up!" Alphys cried, barely audible above the roaring wind. "Mettaton's still up to something!"

Oh please, what could that hulk of metal do to stop me now? Dragging my attention away from the blinding speed and roaring wind was impossible, much less appealing. Like a bullet out the barrel I shot through the air, made it regret ever getting in my way. I was unstoppable, untouchable, un...

"Uuh—Pfft, huh?" Under a mountain of something white and powdery. He's dropping flour on me, I thought as the stuff stung my eyes. As I blinked to clear my vision I caught sight of the killer robot chef hovering just above me, dumping out carpets of flour and bread crumbs like a decommissioned crop duster repurposed as a baking supplies delivery service.

With that amazing business opportunity tucked away for later, I began to veer left and right, finding that even the slightest movements threatened to send me spinning out of control. Riding a bike this was not; I didn't dare drift too far from my intended course out of fear of crashing, even as Mettaton's efforts to slow me down grew more perilous. As I weaved in and out of the droves of weaponized ingredients it became obvious the jet-pack had some sort of assisted steering, or I had otherwise spontaneously become the best pilot of experimental rocket-propelled devices to ever live.

A minute slipped away before my sugar and spice-coated eyes until the top of the tower descended into view. Bursting with energy so fierce I felt I could toss the device aside and fly myself, I tore through Mettaton's final assault, glided around every particle sized ingredient known to man, and snatched the prize awaiting me with precision that surprised even myself.

"Woo-hoo!" I cheered, flipping around in the air until the doctor brought me to a relaxed hover. While my heart rate caught up with the rest of me I waved human-soul substitute in Mettaton's face, who watched me without changing expressions. "How about that, Mettaton? Don't be too upset, I'm sure the substitute tastes just as good as the real thing."

The bot, for once, was silent, either acting apathetic to hide his supercharged circuits or just plain bored with his now lackluster television. "My my. What can I say other than you've bested me." He jabbed a finger into the air, regaining his enthusiasm. "But only because you had the help of the brilliant Dr. Alphys! Oh, I loathe to think of what would have happened to you without her! Well, toodles!" He was gone in an instant, flying away with a familiar CRASH as he blasted through what I presumed to be the ceiling.

"For a self-proclaimed superstar, he could really stand to work on his dramatic exits. Not very classy," I thought aloud, the sheer thrill I'd experienced from jetting around at subsonic speeds beginning to die down. The lizard's tech had proved more capable and...awesome than I'd given her credit for. I guess I would've appreciated the AI more, too, had she made it not want to separate my organs from my body as opposed to the alternative. "Now how am I getting down from here...Alphys?"

"Oh yes!" echoed a voice that couldn't belong to the doctor with the best vocal training in the world. "About the substitution...Haven't you ever seen a cooking show before? I already baked the cake ahead of time! So forget it!" Mettaton's voice finally left me at last with what little victory he could muster.

"Already planned to, Metta-ounce." I looked around at my surroundings, astonished by how high the building stretched. There was nowhere to fly but back down to the miserable ground. "Hey Alphys? Mind helping me get down from here before this thing runs out of fuel? I'd rather not end up a pretty stain in your robot's studio."

"O-oh! Yeah, I'm on it..."

The descent was decidedly less exciting than the flight up. Devoid of anything else to do I opened the can of human-soul substitute, sniffed it, gagged, capped it and tossed it over my shoulder. "The hell do they make that stuff with? My soul doesn't reek that bad, that's for sure...hey doc, you wanna talk while we got a minute?"

"Huh?" Alphys had been absorbed in an uncharacteristic quiet since I'd thwarted her metal offspring's plan. "S-sure," she squeaked, "what did y-you want to talk about?"

"Just, ah...just promise me you won't let this go to your head, Alphys." I rubbed all the doubts off my forearm until I was sure of what I was to say, not waiting for her to answer before continuing, "As much as this bruises my poor, throbbing ego, I hafta admit. You were right for talking me down, I was never going to make it up there without your help. Thanks. Consider us even for letting you spy on me," I added before she could get a big head about everything.

Her voice perked up at my high praise. "N-nice job out there yourself! Like I said, we're a team! I couldn't have done this without y-you, either."

We're a team now, are we? I thought to myself, noticing Alphys had danced around the "spying on me" comment with a clumsy two-step. Last I checked, one of our teammates was out on the field getting their ass melted off by the local residents, solving puzzles, and running around while a chainsaw-wielding robot tried to televise their death. The other made a few phone calls and watched. I swallowed her declaration like a stone lodged in my throat and said a half-hearted, "At least someone's happy to have me around. For myself and not my soul, anyway." Unless...my soul is myself? Still not too clear on that front.

"Hehe..." The doctor's laughter trailed off, leaving me stuck with nothing but the rumbling of engines the rest of the way down.

Welp, see y'all next year.